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Memorial Day, here in the States, at least, is about the honored dead, not testicles. I’m being deliberately humorless about this.

At least you didn’t say, “Happy Memorial Day”. I’ve had people say that to me. There is no more mindless, twittering way to mark the day than that sort of babble.

I hope you rethink the ram’s balls thing. It’s not working.

Actually, I did. It’s the title.

I am fated to be that person who describes something as “serious as a heart attack” to someone who, unbeknownst to me, just lost his father to a heart attack.

I can’t help thinking that changing my mindless twittering to a hasty piety on account of a scolding would be even tackier.

I hadn’t even looked at the title. I saw a picture of a ram with huge yarbles, and I was all set for one of your signature funnies. Then, Memorial Day.

You are aware, of course, that there’s a difference between innocently using a trite phrase when you don’t know it will hurt, and knowing the intent of a holiday that most American adults presumably know the reason for. Not the best analogy, I think. This one just left me flat, is all. You now have a range of tacky to choose from on your palette–from sheep’s balls to caving in.

I’ll still love the blog, and still tell people to check it out. But now I’m a scold. It feels…strange.

I’ve seen a lot of this gloom and doom going around today. To each his own, but I think the best answer is the Gen. Patton quote posted by Glenn Reynolds: “It is foolish and wrong to mourn the men who died. Rather, we should thank God that such men lived.”

I see nothing wrong with wishing a person a Happy Memorial Day, unless they recently lost a loved one that served in the military. In our family, we take flowers to the National Cemetery on the other side of town, then have a cookout. It’s a celebration and a day for teaching the young’uns about duty and sacrifice, not a day of mourning.

Different people mark the day in different ways. Don’t assume yours in the only correct one.

It’s another one of those uncomfortable dichotomy holidays. Most of them are religious: Santa doesn’t sit well with the birth of Jesus; chocolate bunnies and the Resurrection are a bad mix. Memorial Day does dual service as the beginning of Summer, hot dogs and beer and all that.

I wouldn’t dream of going near the serious side of Memorial Day. I hate blogging on September 11. All’s I have is a box of crayons, and none of them are dark.

I’m going out lookering tomorrow morning early with the man who owns that ram. That’s about as far as I was thinking.

We should be damn happy we have Memorial Day.
We should be damn happy to celebrate it.
And I’m damn happy my balls aren’t quite as big.

But Grandpa’s were, and he’d kick your ass if you weren’t out enjoying the sunshine today.

Funny thing, but I’m having trouble thinking of any American holiday that isn’t something of a dichotomy. Hallowe’en, Columbus Day, Labor Day all have their dark and light sides, with people devoted to one side staring resentfully at the antics of those devoted to the other. Maybe Independence Day would qualify. And the days primarily devoted to Hallmark Cards (Valentines, Mother’s, Father’s). There is a degree to which Memorial Day can be like a New Orleans jazz funeral.

I think we’re all just pissy, angry, and frustrated that Obama is treating Memorial Day like a dog who finds a carcass to roll in. Holidays depress me. I always wonder why we can’t honor the sentiment every day, as opposed to just one day a year.

Lookering seems like a fine way to spend a day. If any of the sheep watchers are attractive, you can justify calling them a “looker” and whistling.

There cannot be a less serious thing than to watch someone hold a sheep’s scrotum and shear them delicately.

I wonder who’s gentler about it, women or men?

God Bless the “Rough Men who stand ready to do violence on our behalf”. I was one such from 1982-1991, Light Infantry and Russian Linguist. Wound up working with guns, as an armorer. I miss that sense of purpose that went with those days.

My father went ashore at Normandy in the second wave, served in Korea, buried at Quantico, in Virginia. Probably could have gotten Arlington, but he wound up in Quantico.

I live within a mile of two old family graveyards where some Civil War Kin were interred. I am around this all the time, Memorial Day just highlights the Path some of us walked, at least for me.

Guess, in my own way, I never left that path. You folks be good. I’m going wandering.

Stoaty, Uncle B, thanks for the Blog. It’s a daily ritual now. I thank you.

Good night, Irene…

Mountain Oyster material! Baaaaaaaaaaa!

Growing up in Da South, I didn’t even have Memorial Day on my radar. Really. I don’t think we, meaning Noo Aw-leenians, celebrated it in any big way (though there might have been a mention of “Decoration Day”), and when I was in grammar school and didn’t get out for summer until early June, we sure didn’t have that day off.

“‘Memorial’ Day? That’s a NAWTHUN holiday, suh!”

As a U.S. shepherd (looker?) I’m looking forward to a full report on your lookering.

All I know as a Brit working for a US company, when the markets are closed I get a day off. We have Armistice Day, although it does annoy me that it’s mutated to Remembrance Sunday.

Cripes – now “Doc”.

http://www.foxnews.com/entertainment/2012/05/29/doc-watson-in-critical-condition-after-surgery/

Glad I didn’t pick him in the Dead Pool – I couldn’t stand winning it.

I know, Mike C. It’s like they’re going one after another this Spring, isn’t it?

Alas, I totally screwed my lookering. I hung around the drive for an hour, then I got a call that they’d waited for me and then gone without me. See, I thought they were going to swing by and pick me up. Weasel feel like chump 🙁

And there’s never a chump when you want one.

“I know, Mike C. It’s like they’re going one after another this Spring, isn’t it?”

Just effing depressing… Bill, Lester, John, Earl, and too many others to even list. I suppose it’s inevitable, but that doesn’t make it any better. There’s not a flat-pick guitar player in the universe that didn’t get a great deal of his stuff from Doc.

If I had nuts that big, I sure as shit wouldn’t fag around in some field all day long.

This year’s Memorial day remembrances seemed to be much more [emotionally] patriotic, much more prominent in national media than in years past, Bush years for instance.

I’m such a cynical paranoid misanthrope that when ‘they’ start hammering emotional hot buttons, I keep wondering what ‘they’ are trying to do; what direction are ‘they’ trying to nudge me? I just hate it when people try to mess with my head/heart.

So ya, autonomous, self directed, self propelled, self fueled automatically reproducing lawn mowers are perfect for any summer day.